The OEM’s Tony Prophet discussed the importance of the hub in Piraeus.
HP’s Tony Prophet (Credit: AllThingsD)
The Recycler previously reported that HP was intending to move a “key part of its regional supplies” to the port of Piraeus in Greece, with product shipments moving through the port, which would serve as a central distribution hub for central Europe, the Middle East, north Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and eastern Europe.
The port has a new 17 kilometre (10.6 mile) railway line connecting it to the European freight network, so shipments from the port can reach HP’s European facility in Prague in only five days. AllThingsD interviewed HP’s Senior Vice President for Operations, Tony Prophet, about the focus on Greece, and why the distribution hub is important to the company.
The site refers to Prophet as responsible for creating the “HP train”, a 7,000-mile train delivery route from Chongqing in China all the way to Germany, with Piraeus the port hub. Prophet noted that “when we switched to railroads, we reduced our carbon footprint by 30 times over air freight [and] with cargo ships we reduce it by 57 times”.
Prophet added that the work on renovating the port, undertaken by Chinese shipping company Cosco, was because the Chinese market view Piraeus as “the gateway to Eastern Europe”, with HP’s intentions to expand in the same region, as well as Russia, former Soviet states and the Maghreb region of north Africa dovetailing with the expansion in Greece.
AllThingsD stated in turn that Piraeus’ transition into a “European logistics hub” actually cuts “as many as 10 days off the shipping time to growing markets, which lowers costs” as well as “bringing badly needed economic stimulus to Greece”, which is still suffering from the effects of the global recession. A pilot shipment of HP products from the port took place in May, and live shipments begin throughout early November.